We passed to 200 hour mark today!!! I'm so excited! In MO you have to have 1000 hours of HS per year. You're supposed to log them....although I don't know why because no one ever looks at them. Actually I do know why--it's in case you get turned in to CPS or something. We're aiming to do 100 hours a month for 10 months and then have a two month break. Or something like that. I'm really not sure if I want two whole months off, I may have to take like 3 weeks off and then do a week of review or somthing.

Okay, just so everyone knows my kids who do school are 6.5 & 4 (5 in Dec). We use My Father's World, we have about 4 days left of K. I have already boughten the 1st curriculum and we will probably start it after a couple days off and see how it goes but we may go slowly since they are still pretty young and my oldest is struggling with reading. My almost 3 YO likes to join in with us also, and by that I mean mostly she gets in the way a lot. But I sometimes give her something to cut out or whatever to keep her happy and to keep her from derailing us too much.

It's only one oclock and I am tired!! We did school this morning and all went very well today. And the house still looks kind of awful (okay, really pretty awful still) but the dishes and the laundry got done, plus we've had lunch and I've got the chili going in the crock pot for supper.

Heather--sorry you're feeling stinky now and hope you feel better soon! I can't really imagine trying to get everything done and being 8 months preggo...although I should probably start imagining because we're hoping to get a bun in the oven soon. How much time are you taking off when the little one comes?

Angel--I thought you were using Abecka? Maybe I made that up.... It's awesome that your husband teaches though. My DH doesn't teach, but we do use him to review sometimes. Like "Hey guys! Go show Daddy that frog book we made and read it too him." So they get a bit of extra practice with whatever we're learning about and he stays somewhat informed about what we are learning. It's a win-win.

Somochickenlady--I'm interested in the sign language class too. I keep thinking I want to teach the kids more signs (and learn more signs myself) but I never get around to doing it.

Hope everyone's afternoon goes well!

Congrats on passing 200 hour mark today!

Smart children you have there. Already ready for 1st grade!

I'm soooo tired when I am done with homeschooling hours, I think part of it is a relief to get one day's agenda done. And of course, after hoemschooling, I have to get the house cleaned up too.

We are using A beka for our 7 year old right now plus few other things to supplement. Wait, actually we are using Saxon for math. lol My brain is tired today.
I want to get A beka for my almost 5 year old too, but do not have the budget yet. I think I can keep going without buying a curriculum for math for her. I'm using lesson pathways to get ideas about what to teach in what order for math.
But I'd love to get at least phonics curriculum from A beka for her.
I'm reading phonics blends with my daughter for now.
If anyone wants to sell Abeka curriculum for K5, please let me know. I'm trying to sell some items on ebay and saving up money.

My husband was not involved with homeschooling before, but he is retired from his work at this moment (at least until he decides he finds anohter job), so he has been at home a whole lot more, so he can teach now. I'm asking him to teach the subjects he enjoys teaching. It has been helpful.

We passed to 200 hour mark today!!! I'm so excited! In MO you have to have 1000 hours of HS per year. You're supposed to log them....although I don't know why because no one ever looks at them. Actually I do know why--it's in case you get turned in to CPS or something. We're aiming to do 100 hours a month for 10 months and then have a two month break. Or something like that. I'm really not sure if I want two whole months off, I may have to take like 3 weeks off and then do a week of review or somthing.

Okay, just so everyone knows my kids who do school are 6.5 & 4 (5 in Dec). We use My Father's World, we have about 4 days left of K. I have already boughten the 1st curriculum and we will probably start it after a couple days off and see how it goes but we may go slowly since they are still pretty young and my oldest is struggling with reading. My almost 3 YO likes to join in with us also, and by that I mean mostly she gets in the way a lot. But I sometimes give her something to cut out or whatever to keep her happy and to keep her from derailing us too much.

It's only one oclock and I am tired!! We did school this morning and all went very well today. And the house still looks kind of awful (okay, really pretty awful still) but the dishes and the laundry got done, plus we've had lunch and I've got the chili going in the crock pot for supper.

Heather--sorry you're feeling stinky now and hope you feel better soon! I can't really imagine trying to get everything done and being 8 months preggo...although I should probably start imagining because we're hoping to get a bun in the oven soon. How much time are you taking off when the little one comes?

Angel--I thought you were using Abecka? Maybe I made that up.... It's awesome that your husband teaches though. My DH doesn't teach, but we do use him to review sometimes. Like "Hey guys! Go show Daddy that frog book we made and read it too him." So they get a bit of extra practice with whatever we're learning about and he stays somewhat informed about what we are learning. It's a win-win.

Somochickenlady--I'm interested in the sign language class too. I keep thinking I want to teach the kids more signs (and learn more signs myself) but I never get around to doing it.

Hope everyone's afternoon goes well!

Congrats on passing the 200hr mark! I'm in MO also, and I'm really nervous about making 1000 hours. I keep track of all my minutes/hours, though, so hopefully I'm safe even if someone attempts to check in on us. So far, so good, though. We started on August 20th, and we will pass 100 hours this week.

Today we got back at it, and DS is very happy to be back to school. He has always loved school, so that's great. It's kind of nice to be back in our routine for me also.

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KARAMomtoGreyson, 14

After 12 years of TTC #2, multiple miscarriages, failed infertility treatments, and two failed (not on our end) attempts at becoming foster/adopt parents in two states...we gave up. I stick around for the awesome conversation.

I'm in too! Of our 6 only 3 are "officially" HS this year. DS1 is in 3rd, DD1 is in 2nd, and DS2 is in K. DD2 just turned 4 and does some Pre-K, but nothing very formal. We are currently finishing up the last few weeks of Adventures in MFW, and also use Explode the Code and are just starting Math-U-See. We will also be going through the unit studies in Galloping the Globe this year and are trying to ease our way into the Charlotte Mason method.

Last night I finished printing out free pages from the Simply Charlotte Mason site for a book of centuries. Also since I won't have the MFW schedule to follow pretty soon, I am trying to create my own schedule/planner using a free homeschool plan book from http://www.homeschooladviceonline.com/main/home.html

Today we had a pretty good day. We got through math and reading with only a little complaining. Our read aloud book right now is "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (a Little House book) and DS1 is the most into it which surprises me. I am blessed to have my mom, who lives next door, come over most mornings to help occupy the little ones. We also got caught up on laundry and dishes. We managed to get all our "school" done before lunch and the kids have been outside enjoying the beautiful weather we're having in north eastern OH right now. I only hope the furnace keeps working since it's getting pretty chilly at night and we've had to have it fixed once already in the last week.
Hope everyone's day went smoothly too!

Our day was great! He has mastered writing his F,f, L, J and working on B. Found some chalking stuff? at a garage sale last week-suppose to be for scrapbooking, but he had so much fun with it today! Also we planted beans a few days ago and WOW they have grown so much in a little amount of time! Tomorrow will be a wash out here. We have to drive an hour away for doctors appts. So our day is basicly shot. But his sister will read to him in the van, so not a total waste!

Thank you for the sign language information, Kara! My computer is a cheap laptop that shuts itself down on its own sometimes now, so I don't know if it can handle the downloads it suggests, so I might start that when kids have their own computer someday!

Corrie, we had a lovely day outside here too. I love it when we get the homeschooling done before lunch!

Miranda, I love it when older one reads to younger one. I hope your appointments will go smoothly.

Sounds like many of us had a nice day.

I went shopping with my mother in law. My husband did his part of teaching. I left a list of things for my son to do, my son read the list and did what he had to do. My daughter did not do much for studying today. Very busy coloring my little pony coloring pages all day plus playing with leapster games and leappad games.

Tomorrow, my MIL wants to take the kids to a park. (She has day offs yesterday and today, then she will be back to her work schedule again. She is wanting to do something during the day offs. ) So we won't be starting the day with homeschooling. We'll see how the day plays out. I will have something light planned for the kids for tomrorow.

This week,
I'm teaching my daughter different shapes like hexagon, octagon, etc for math.
Doing "my first langauge" for her L.A. and some letter formation. I'm trying to get her to understand how letters are formed as far as using the lines and putting the letters where they belong (upper, middle, bottom, letterhouse comcept). So far, I introduced the concept once, but I was also playing letter factory DVD in the background, so she was distracted.
I would like to also start teaching her that words are written from left to right. You know how kids start writing and spelling in all sorts of direction when they start to learn how to write messages? lol

My son has been enjoying playing with educational apps on ipod. His favorite is stack the country, and he mentioned that the same creater makes different apps. So I looked ito it, and purchased Stack the States this evening. He is so hooked. He knows more about geography than I do thanks to ipod games.

I have been procrastinating doing my lesson plans for this next month long session, but I finally sat down and got it done tonight. I'm glad to have it all done! Well, mostly anyway. All I have left is to plug one last week of my lesson plans into my tracker program (I have it written into my plan book which is easier for me to visualize when I plan it out, but the tracker program keeps a record of grades), but my back is starting to hurt so I'll finish that tomorrow.

Tonight I found what seems like a good free online typing program for DS to learn to type properly. All DS has to do is log in from his computer, and on my end it tells me his scores, and which lessons he has completed. I'm going to give it a try to see how he likes it.

Alpha Omega Lifepac History and Language Arts
CLE 700 Math
CK12 Biology
Sign Language
Typing
and he is reading The Book Thief

Can anyone think of anything we are missing?

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KARAMomtoGreyson, 14

After 12 years of TTC #2, multiple miscarriages, failed infertility treatments, and two failed (not on our end) attempts at becoming foster/adopt parents in two states...we gave up. I stick around for the awesome conversation.

Good morning!! I don't have a lot of time to type I just wanted to post really quick and get in here!! I can really use some support, we moved over a year ago and I haven't made any friends here.. I am super shy and have been feeling really isolated.

Anyway, I'm working with my 5 year old on kindergarten and 3 year old on prek. We're going to work on sight words and review a beginners reader today, read some poetry or books whatever they feel like. Number concepts with ds, hes ready for addition. Other than that today feels like a craft day! (:

Corrie - It's nice to see you are schooling with only 3 of your 6. I have 5 who are all 6 and under and I'm about to have my 6th, hopefully, next week. It feels a little overwhelming some days to be trying to do school with only 1 and having 5 others who aren't and then I think about a next year when I'll have 3 doing formal school (2nd and 2 K'ers) and how will that work out. We are doing MFW 1st this year and will do Adventures next year. My 4 year olds tag along and do a little preschool when they want to, nothing formal.

Jen - Congrats on making it to 200hrs!!!!

Miranda - Yay for success yesterday!!!

AFM - I'm struggling being at the end of this pregnancy. I feel better today, but all I seem to care about is cleaning my house. With 5 kids 6 and under, I can have it spotless and in less than an hour it looks like I haven't picked up in months. LOL! The kids do help. I'm not complaining about needing help keeping it clean. My issue is I can't imagine going into labor and everyone converging on the house (doula and my mom to be with me and my in-laws to take care of my kids) and anything not being done, like diapers not being washed or a huge pile of clean laundry on the couch or dishes not done or whatever. So, I'm trying to stay REALLY on top of everything. Because of this, all I can think about is picking/cleaning up and I'm not working on school. Usually, we do some school in the morning and then finish up after the 2 year olds are napping. I could do my cleaning in the AM to make sure it's done and then school at least during naptime even if we don't get all the way done, but I'm so tired by then. I just want to rest. I will admit, it's hard for me to get back into the swing of school when we have had a lot of time off and we did take the last 2 wks off just because we had so many appts. Anyway, so yet again, all I've done this morning is clean up. I'm really hoping that I can pull this together and get another week worth of school in before this baby, but I just don't know. Wish me luck getting something done after lunch today!

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Heather SAHM to 6 who are 7 and under, including 2 sets of twins and our last little miracle, a surviving identical twin, born Oct 2012!